2024-03-05 23:18:04
The film studio Paramount Pictures will try to resurrect the series of goofy comedies Crazy Bullet, in which the now-deceased Leslie Nielsen played the hard-featured, soft-brained cop Frank Drebin. In the upcoming remake, he will be replaced by 71-year-old Liam Neeson, known from the films Schindler’s List or Heavenly Love.
The work on the news was announced by the AP agency. According to her, the director will be the American Akiva Schaffer, who participated in the sketch show Saturday Night Live and made the feature films Neighborhood Watch and Highway Pirate.
The new Crazy Bullet will hit theaters in July 2025. According to Variety.com, it will be produced by Seth MacFarlane, the author of the American Dad series or the film sagas of the Bear, and Erica Huggins through the company Fuzzy Door.
Leslie Nielsen in the third Crazy Shot from 1994. | Photo: Profimedia.cz
The series originally started as a TV series called Police Squad, followed by feature films to great success. The first, in which Los Angeles police lieutenant Frank Drebin tries to prevent the assassination of the Queen of England, premiered in 1988. The second appeared three years later, the last came to theaters in 1994. A trio of pictures, each with a modest budget in the low tens of millions of dollars , grossed nearly $477 million worldwide.
All three films worked with crazy humor, exaggeration and parodied the popular Hollywood genre of dramas about tough cops wading through the mud of the big city and relentlessly fighting crime on all fronts. Compared to them, the confused lieutenant Frank Drebin was closer to Inspector Clouseau. He caused confusion and misunderstanding with his every action, yet in the end he solved every case.
In addition to Nielsen, the films featured Priscilla Presley, who played the hero’s girlfriend Jane, or the American football player OJ Simpson, known from the watched trial on charges of murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend.
The lead actor, white-haired Canadian Leslie Nielsen, died in 2010 at the age of 84. For a long time he was known mainly for dramas. But then filmmakers Jim Abrahams with David and Jerry Zucker chose him for a supporting role in the comedy Please Buckle Up, which parodied disaster movies. Its success foreshadowed the creation of Crazy Bullets by the same authors.
At a relatively late age, Nielsen discovered in himself a comedic talent, a sense of situational humor and the ability to deliver the most absurd lines with a stone face. He made full use of all this in the character of Lieutenant Drebin. “I’ve been cast against type for thirty-five years. Now I’m finally doing what I’ve always wanted to do,” Nielsen commented on the unexpected turn in his career.
Video: Trailer from the movie Crazy Shot
The original Crazy Bullet starring Leslie Nielsen premiered in 1988. | Video: Aerofilms